[20] The reader may usefully be reminded that the fashion had come in at that time of pasting several-page leaflets on the walls. [21] She had introduced a female friend to stand for the man she really intended, Talleyrand. [22] Most of the reports of the embassy to the Foreign Minister (published by Pallain) were obviously written or dictated by Talleyrand. At the end of the report of May 28th Chauvelin is made to say very pointedly that, though he alone signs, “_nous_” means all three of them. In one dispatch Talleyrand thus describes the English (for whom he had a genuine regard: there is not a sharp or sarcastic word about them in these letters): “A nation slow and methodical by temperament, and which, unceasingly occupied with its commercial interests, does not care to be constantly diverted from it by political controversy.” He is explaining why the French Revolution has little echo in England. [23] But the passport is dated the 7th, and we know of a still earlier application to leave. [24] Lady Blennerhassett makes it precede the Jacobin propagandist decrees, and so not only robs it of half its credit, but finds it in a ridiculous predicament. She dates the memorandum November 2nd. It is really dated the 25th. [25] Fortunately for him, as it now proved his only resource outside of France. His fine collection passed under the hammer at Sotheby’s in April (1793). The sale lasted ten days and realised more than £2,000. Talleyrand puts it at £700, but I have seen a catalogue with the prices filled in. Another somewhat mysterious sale of a French diplomatist’s library took place at Sotheby’s in 1816, realising £8,000. The King’s librarian describes this collection also as having belonged to Talleyrand, and in that case the earlier sale would not represent his whole library. But we shall see that it is almost impossible to trace the second sale to Talleyrand. [26] I have referred already to a legend assigning his birth to America. The only foundation for this is that he visited Mount Desert, and, as he limped about, reminded the older inhabitants of a lame boy, born there of a French officer and American girl in 1754, and afterwards taken to France. In spite of the fact that Talleyrand’s father was a distinguished noble of high character attached to Versailles; that the father’s wife, daughter of the Marquis d’Antigny, acknowledged Charles Maurice to her death in 1809, and was supported by him in her later years; that the interest in him of his great-grandmother, his uncle, and every member and friend of the family was known to all France; this legend has been put forward in America (_Bookman_, September 26th, 1901) as worthy of serious consideration. There is hardly another character in recent history about whom myths have been so blindly entertained.